The next example will colorize messages you receive "today". From the View | Current View menu, select Define Views then select the Messages view and click the copy button. Name the new view "Color by Date" and click OK. The View Summary dialog will open and you'll select the Automatic Formatting button. Click the Add button in the Automatic Formatting dialog and name the rule "Today". Click on the Font button to choose a new font color then click OK. Next, select the Condition button--on the Messages tab of the filter dialog, select Received in the Time field at the bottom of the dialog, then select Today in the field to the right. The header of all messages from "Today" will be in color. If you want to restrict the formatting to unread messages, look on the More Choices tab and check the box for "Only items that are unread". You can repeat these steps to create a rule for yesterday or last week.

Since you can do so much with views and I only have so much column space available to tell you how, I'll leave you to experiment with views and filtering on your own. Play around with the filter dialog and if you discover a view you think other readers would like, send it to me at outlook@cdolive.com. I'll use some of the views in a future column.

Diane Poremsky is the president of CDOLive LLC and a Microsoft Outlook MVP. She's coauthor of Word 2002: The Complete Reference (Osborne, 2001) and Beginning Visual Basic 6 Application Development (for Wrox Press). For questions or suggestions for future columns, write her at outlook@cdolive.com.